Have you ever created mood boards in your journals? Do you create a vision board for the rest of the year too? Do you visit your mood board everyday or is it just lost in one of your pages in your journal? In this blog, I will be talking about how I create my vision and mood boards in my journal and what I use them for! Let’s hop right into it!

Mood Board 101!

Hello! I’m Viv from @bujowmee on Instagram/YouTube here talking about mood an vision boards today! I started creating mood boards in my journals hallway through my first year of journaling, but vision boards are something I recently got into! By recently, I mean mid-way through 2022, when I was watching autumn’s (@autumnaldrich) 2022 yearly setup. They are fairly new to me but I do enjoy creating them and looking at them when I flip through my journal. In this blog, I’ll be talking you through the ‘what’, ‘why’, and ‘how’ of mood boards! I will also be talking to you a little about vision boards and some examples of those. As for how to create them, they aren’t that different from mood boards so you can create them the way you would create a mood board! 

Supplies For Creating A Mood Board! 

For our mood board today, I used the equipment below which you may also find helpful in recreating any of the designs! Remember you can always use my code VIV10 for 10% off on all your orders at Archer and Olive; we love ourselves a little discount!

• Bullet journal, specifically A&O’s A5 Moon flowers journal! (any size would work!)
• Acrylographs from A&O
• Some scrap papers
• Papers from the A&O notepads work just fine, but you can also use velum (I used the one from the December Sub Box) along with some doilies!
• Some prints from Pinterest or Google
• The prints will be a visual representation of what you want your mood board to look like!
• Some stickers and washi tapes (optional!)

If you’re a visual learner than a reader, feel free to check out how I create my mood board in my journal below!

But what is it..? 

Mood boards are visual tools that communicate our concepts and ideas. In a simpler form, they are the representation of what you want your month to look like! Mood boards are not only limited to months and you can always create mood boards for other things and that can include your job, your current project, or maybe something long term, like quarterly goals or semester goals!

Mood board above by @bujoforstars!

Using a mood board helps you focus on the goals you have set for yourself! They also help you explain the vision you have in mind for the project. I create mood boards in my journal as a form of manifestation where I stick to things I want to have accomplished by the end of the month. You can use your mood boards the same way or you can use your mood boards to show what your current mood is! I tend to stick to manifestations because it helps me with keeping my goals in clear sight!

Mood Board by @somekind.art!

You can also create a mood board sticking to your theme for the month! One example of this is the mood board I did in September! For September, my theme was a dog swimming in the pool, and I created a mood board with pictures related to the same! I didn’t have a set agenda for the month and who can’t deny the cuteness of dogs in your journals!

If you’re not a person who journals a lot, you can always create a digital mood board and print it out! A fellow ambassador, @shawnaclingerman, does the same! She creates her mood board digitally and prints them out later on. It’s definitely an easier and quicker method because you can add small designs digitally and have it on the go on your phone when you don’t carry your journal! Printing it out and putting it in front of you also helps you look at it at a glance, and not flip through the journal to look at it every time! Shawna created this mood board during her Visio board workshop with @libby_co! In their workshop they chose three desired emotions and represent those emotions/goals through images. For Shawna, the pictures below depict alive, satisfied, and sure! This is another amazing way to create your mood board!

What about vision board? 

Vision boards are also something you can look into if you’re interested in mood boards! Vision boards are more of a direction you want your life to go to, while mood boards are more of your current aesthetic/goals for the time being! I started creating vision boards midway through 2022 and love how they turned out! It’s another way of manifesting your goals! I started creating vision boards after looking at @autumnaldrich’s 2022 setup on Youtube! Her video is a perfect tutorial on how to create your first vision board in your journal. In her vision board, she shows her way of making a vision board, where she adds simple elements like what she wants it to sound like, what she thinks it’ll sound like, and what she thinks it’ll look like! It’s beginner friendly and you can change different things in there too! 

Another idea for a vision board is this one I created for 2022! It’s inspired by @amandarachlee’s vision board from 2020. It’s another vision board which is beginner-friendly and can be recreated as well. My vision board includes a word that I want my 2023 to be defined by, along with the word of the year! There’s also a small envelope where I wanted to add in quotes people tell me, or quotes I come across when I’m reading something! It’s quite easy to recreate and you can also refer to my other blog, link to first blog here, for recreating since it’s pretty similar in style!

Another vision board you can take inspiration from is another fellow ambassador’s, Vero, work! Her vision board is more abstract with watercolor work running in the background. The vision board helps her visualize and usually comes true as well! You can take a look at how she made it in her video here!

How does one even..?

Creating a mood board is a fun way to manifest your ideas and goals every month! Below are the steps for the designs I created in my youtube video above! If you’re more of a visual person, feel free to skip reading this and go directly to the photo below this paragraph for the steps. For everybody who’d read and refer, follow the steps below the photo!

• For the mood board I created, I used scraps of paper as my base. It’s a great way to reuse any scraps from your journals!
• For me, I decided to stick with black since I was using kraft paper to create my mood board.
• This one part is optional, but you can also use decorative paper, like the velum from December Sub Box, as a form of layering!

• This step is the part where you stick the prints in your spread. There are some pictures as a part of the printable below so you can print them out to use them!
• For mine, I just used pictures that were similar to my theme for January! You can also use prints that do not stick with your theme.

• All you need to do for this step is to decorate! You can add stickers or use Acrylographs to decorate your spread. You can also use washi tape and small envelopes in your spread, just like I did!

And that’s all there is to how you can create a mood board in your journal! You can follow the same steps for creating a vision board as well!

Again, if you’d like to see how I created the mood board above, it’s in the video on the top of the blog! The steps I use are just the same as the steps I've written in this blog. Below is a printable with pictures to use in your mood board along with some ideas for mood boards and vision boards!

There are many ways to create mood boards and I hope you’ve found the ideas in this blog post to be helpful; I hope you’re excited to create an aesthetic for yourself and your journal! Feel free to tag me, @bujowmee, @archerandolive, @archerandolive.community, #AOShare, and #archerandolive in your mirror arts related to this blog on Instagram. We can’t wait to see what you create! (:

If you need more info on vision boards, go check out Amanda’s blog on goal setting where she talks about vision boards in detail!